


Baby Steps

by Finale



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Green Lantern (Comics), Green Lantern - All Media Types, Justice League - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Puppy Love, deaged!Bruce Wayne, deaged!Hal Jordan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 05:51:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7606153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Finale/pseuds/Finale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you need to take baby steps to figure out how to make a move</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baby Steps

Bruce rubs at his eyes, sniffling. He wants his parents, he doesn’t know where he is, or why he’s surrounded by people in weird clothes, and he wants Alfred. The pretty woman who’d put him in this room, Diana, had promised him that they were trying to reach Alfred, but he doesn’t know how much he trusts her. He doesn’t know her, so why should he.

“Hi, I’m Hal!” a voice chirps behind him, and Bruce spins to see who it is.

It was another kid his age, with messy brown hair and a bright smile. He’s wearing an oversized bomber jacket, a green shirt and jeans, but his sneakers are missing. Hal’s about the same height as him, Bruce thinks, but seems a bit more confident.

“I’m Bruce,” he says, offering his hand like Mom and Dad tell him to do when meeting new people. “Did you get put in here by Diana too?”

“No, I got put in here by a guy named Barry,” Hal says, shaking his hand. “Are you okay? You look like you were crying.”

“I’m not crying,” Bruce lies, scrubbing at his face. “I just want to go home.”

“Same,” Hal agrees. “And I think they’re up to something. That Barry guy looked really weird. I think we should escape.”

They should escape? But...then Bruce thinks about how weird everyone had been acting. Like they’d been trying to hide something. And why did they say they were trying to reach Alfred? Why aren’t they trying to reach his parents?

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” Bruce says, and something in him feels wrong saying that to Hal. Like he shouldn’t be telling Hal anything he says is right. Weird.

“Let’s go!”

*************

“They escaped Medical and now no one can find them,” Barry reports, looking a bit frazzled. “Like, they have to be here somewhere. There’s no way off Watchtower besides the zetabeams, and J’nn’s made it so that won’t work for them.”

“We’ll find them,” Clark assures Barry. “They might have gotten into the vents or something. One of them is Bruce after all. It would be like him.”  
“I think the bigger issue is one of them is Hal,” Dinah says dryly. “Pre-Crime Alley, Bruce Wayne was a pretty normal rich kid. Hal has been pure havoc since the day he was born. So I think we need to think like Hal.”

All of them pause.

“Or we think like rational adults,” Diana says, even more dryly.

“Hey, I got the baby leashes!” Ollie says, barreling back into the room.

“Like rational adults,” Diana repeats, giving Ollie a flat look. “Rational adults.”

*************  
“ _We’re in space_ ,” Hal breathes, pressing his face flat against the observation window, looking down on Earth. “This is so _cool_.”

“But how’d we get here?” Bruce asks, frowning slightly. “It’s cool that we’re up here, but how did we get here?”

“We got kidnapped by aliens maybe?” Hal suggests with a shrug. “I dunno.”

They both jerk as they hear a sudden shout from a few hallways down.

“Huh, they found your one boobytrap,” Hal says thoughtfully. “Wonder how many are left.”

“Don’t know, but I think we should run,” Bruce says, grabbing Hal’s hand and biting back a blush. Why did he keep blushing?!?! Boys aren’t supposed to think other boys are cute, right?

“Yeah, I think we should too,” Hal agrees, looking a little flushed. “‘Cause I don’t wanna be here after whoever gets out of that trap finds us.”

Both run out of the room, narrowly avoiding Oliver, covered in glitter and bits of paper. They’d found both in a room for someone named ‘Dick Grayson’, and used dental floss for a trip wire. It had been Bruce’s idea, but it had been Hal who’d been able to scramble up the wall to put the bucket full of glitter and paper up there.

“I think next time we should put glue in the glitter,” Hal says.

“I think so too,” Bruce nods.

“Hah, got you two brats!” Oliver says, having sneaked up on the running duo, and grabs them by the scruffs of their necks. “No getting away this time,” he adds, trying to wrangle them into the toddler leashes.

“What the fuck dude?” snaps Hal, startling the other two by swearing. “We aren’t babies! Get these off of us!”

“Oh no,” Ollie says, getting Bruce trapped in the one and trying to get Hal in the other. “You two are getting leashed and are going back into your room.”

Bruce gives Hal a sidelong glance once they’re both on the toddler leashes. This blond dumbass does get that they’re six, not two right?

“Now you can’t get away.”

Wow. Wow he’s dumb.

*************

“They got out,” Oliver says faintly, staring at where the green and black toddler leashes are still tied to the bed, but both occupants missing.

“Ollie, you do get that they’re six, not two, right?” Dinah asks her husband slowly, giving him an askew glance. “And that means they can very easily figure out how to get out of those things?”

“I... _fuck_ ,” Oliver says. “I did think they couldn’t get out of them,” he admits.

“This is why I worry when Roy leaves you alone with Lian,” Dinah informs him. “Because you don’t get how children work. Or that six year olds are capable of doing things like this.”

“They couldn’t have gotten far,” Barry points out. “It took Oliver, what? Ten minutes to get us all down here? So they can’t be too far away. We’ll find them.”

“Famous last words,” Dinah groans. “Famous. Last.Words.”

******************

“I hope that blond weirdo gets paint in his eyes,” Hal says vindictively, munching on the cookies they’d stolen out of the kitchen.

They are hiding in a closet near the kitchen, carefully sneaking pillows and blankets in there to be comfortable. Hopefully their kidnappers wouldn’t be able to find them any time soon. This time they’d been more careful. All their traps are on the opposite side of where they are. Only one is linked to the door of their closet.

“Same,” Bruce agrees, eating his own cookie much more neatly than Hal. “I hope he gets so much glue on him he has to shave that stupid beard on his face.”

“He looks ridiculous,” Hal agrees, drinking his soda. “I think he should shave it off.”

Bruce taps his fingers against his leg, hesitantly leaning against Hal. The brunet leans back against him, almost snuggling into him. Neither of them are sure who grabs the other’s hand first.

“I hope when we get out of here our parents let us hang out again,” Hal says softly.

“I hope so too,” Bruce says, and it’s impulse that makes him kiss Hal on the cheek, the other boy turning bright red. “I like you.”

“I like you too,” Hal mumbles, looking down at their hands. He kisses Bruce on the cheek, making Bruce turn as red as Hal still is.

“Lets wait for our parents to rescue us,” Bruce says. “When they find us together they’ll definitely let us hang out again.”

“Yeah,” Hal agrees.

Both of them doze off waiting, curling and cuddling into the other.

***************

Dinah finally finds them three hours later, after almost half the League has been caught in Bruce and Hal’s traps. She has to admire the skill both deaged heroes had shown. She hadn’t realized they’d both been able to do this at their ages. With a smile she snaps a photo of them, Hal practically wrapped around Bruce and Bruce’s hands tightly holding onto Hal’s shirt.

Quietly she signals to Clark to pick them up, the Kryptonian careful as he does so. Both continue sleeping on to their relief, and they bring them down to Medical. Zatanna is waiting on them, and she smiles softly down at the sleeping duo as Clark puts them down on the largest medbed. He’s worried that if he tries to separate them they’ll wake up.

“It’s an easy enough fix,” she murmurs to them. “Simple enough spell, but the signature had been a bit distorted. Eb sltuda niaga.”

“Seriously?” Oliver mutters incredulously. He’s absolutely coated in glitter, glue, paint and paper. He’d fallen in almost half of the demon duo’s traps.

“Sometimes simple works best,” Zatanna says to him as she walks away. “And not underestimating the skill of someone else. Now let’s head out of here. They’re probably going to be asleep a little longer, and it looks like neither of them are interested in letting go.”

Clark raises a brow as he realizes Bruce and Hal are still cuddling.

 _Hmmm...maybe this will finally get Bruce to acknowledge his feelings,_ he muses.

******************

Hal opens his eyes slowly, somehow unsurprised to find Bruce’s sleeping face in front of him. In sleep Gotham’s Dark Knight looked years younger, relaxed in a way Hal’s almost never seen him. He gently cups Bruce’s face, stroking a thumb against Bruce’s cheek; Hal knows its unlikely he’ll get a chance to do this again.

He vaguely remembers what happened. Being deaged and running around with Bruce, trying to avoid the League and managing to catch Ollie in a glitter and paper trap. He idly wonders what other traps his friend had stumbled into. But even thinking that, he knows he’s trying to distract himself.

I like you…Shame that Bruce as an adult didn’t like him. He’d been more than half in love with him for years. Little kid crushes mean nothing. It had just been puppy love, brought on by being ‘kidnapped’ by the League. Bruce doesn’t like him.

Bruce makes an odd grumbling noise, and Hal knows the man is about to wake up. He tries to move his hand and fails, looking in surprise at Bruce’s hand covering the hand he has on Bruce’s cheek. Sleepy blue eyes blink awake at him, sharpening within seconds. Even when Bruce is coherent he doesn’t move his hand off of his; instead Bruce’s thumb strokes the side of his hand gently.

“I’m guessing we fell asleep and they found us,” Bruce says, and for the first time Hal realizes Bruce is still holding his shirt.

“I guess so,” Hal agrees. “Wonder who found us?”

“Probably Clark,” Bruce says, and why isn’t he letting go of his shirt or hand?

“I think it was Dinah,” Hal disagrees loyally.

“Maybe it was both,” suggest Bruce, as if looking for a compromise. “And probably Zatanna that returned us to normal.”

“Without a doubt,” Hal says. “So, are we not touching the elephant in the room?”

“What elephant?” Bruce asks, and it feels like the Gothamite is getting closer. Hal realizes Bruce definitely is when he can feel Bruce’s breath against his lips. “The fact we both liked each other as little kids?”

“Yeah,” Hal says, averting his eyes. “The fact we kissed each other on the cheek when we were deaged and said we liked each other and wanted to spend time with each other again.”

“I think we both know how the other feels as adults,” says Bruce, blue eyes studying Hal closely.

Before Hal lets disappointed well up inside him, he feels Bruce’s lips against his own, the Gothamite pulling him close with the hand still clenched into his shirt. Hal parts his lips unthinkingly, hand slipping from Bruce’s cheek to clutch at his hair instead. Bruce deepens their kiss, wrapping his arms around Hal, and Hal is now clutching at Bruce’s shirt.

When their kiss finally breaks, Hal’s almost surprised to see the smile he should have expected on Bruce’s face.

“How long?” Hal asks quietly, staring into Bruce’s eyes.

“As long as you,” he says kissing Hal again.

“As long as you, and as afraid to make the first move.”


End file.
